david loki (davidloki) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-11-15 00:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | !partner thread, david loki, leon orcot |
Who: David and Leon
What: Drinks and whatnot
When: [Backdated] Late October
Where: McNally's Bar
Rating/Warnings: Teen/Language
Status: Closed/Completed GDoc
McNally’s wasn’t officially a cop bar, but every time Leon went there, most of the patrons were cops and today wasn’t any different. There had been a time when McNally’s was Leon’s go-to drinking hole, but it felt like a while since he’d last come here and he realized that between spending his free time with Chris and spending his drinking time mostly with Revy, he really hadn’t been here in a while. The only reason he’d come tonight instead of going to drink somewhere where he might run into Revy was because some of the guys had invited him out for drinks before he had left the station, saying they might meet up with some of the guys from Orange PD, and Leon had kind of missed drinking with cops instead of ex-cons.
He went up to the bar to order his drink: Jameson, neat, and grinned when he caught sight of David Loki, the Network’s newest victim. “Hey, Dave! Long time,” Leon said, raising his glass in greeting.
The days were long, and the nights? Well hell, they felt even longer than they normally did these days with the Dreams he'd been having. David tried to figure out exactly what way his Dreams were going to go, but everything was so fucked that he didn't know how he was going to figure this one out. That, however, was not the reason he was at McNally's drinking, he was just wanting to relax a little while before going home.
His beer was nearly half empty by the time Leon greeted him and raised his glass in his direction. "Hey Leon." He raised his beer in greeting back, "How's it going man?" He asked, turning slightly on his stool to look over at him.
Leon walked over to David, and hopped up onto the bar stool next to him. If David had a problem with him being there he could say as much, though Leon couldn’t imagine why he would have an issue. “Same old, same old,” Leon said. It was a little strange to him that he was beginning to accept the dreams and the rest of the craziness of the County (which he’d somehow been blind to beforehand) as ‘just another day’ but he didn’t spend much time thinking about it. Humans were adaptable.
“How about you? How’s the Network treating you so far?”
David chuckled softly and gave a small sideways tip of his head, "I hear that." It was pretty much the same in David's world. Work, home, sometimes the bar and shitty diner food that made him wish that he was home more to cook. Oh well, it was what it was, and as long as he took care in ordering he should be fine.
"Can't complain. Life is pretty boring, to be honest." He paused though as he thought over his answer about the Network. There was a lot that could be said from what he'd seen, and it was rather interesting to read what people were talking about. "Not bad. Talked to some interesting people, they all seem nice, at least." He lifted a shoulder, and then took another sip of his beer. "My only complaint is that since joining that damned place I've started having dreams like everyone else. I swear, I was fine without them."
“The dreams are a pain in the ass,” Leon said, taking a swig of his drink. While occasionally he’d have a rough dream, generally they were more obnoxious than they were bad. “One morning I woke up so drunk I had to get one of my buddies to give me a ride to work. I suspect they’re out to ruin my life. What do you dream about?”
David pulled a face, and then shook his head. "That had to be rough man." He couldn't imagine going into work drunk. He'd likely call out and say that he'd caught some sort of stomach bug or something. David took another swallow of his beer, "A case, of all fucking things." He snorted, and then glanced over at Leon. "Two girls gone missing, one suspect that has the mental capacity of a ten year old that we didn't have any concrete evidence against so we had to release him and one pissed off dad that won't let me do my job." He took another pull on his beer, "That's all I've got right now, and it's fucking frustrating."
Leon frowned to himself. He dreamed of being a cop too, but the cases he dealt with weren’t anything like the cases he was likely to run across in the real world. He’d hated them at first, but he’d kind of warmed to them lately, and he was almost kind of glad for the change in routine. If he had had to keep doing the same thing when he was awake and asleep he imagined that that would likely get old fast.
“Shit, I hope you find them soon,” he said. “Dealing with overprotective parents is the fucking worst.” He’d dealt with his fair share of them. It was especially a pain in the ass when it turns out that Little Miss Princess was actually involved in some shady stuff, because then the parents seemed to make it their job to stop his investigation. “You think it’s more than one guy? I have trouble seeing someone with the mental capacity of ten managing to pull off kidnapping two girls.”
"You and me both, Leon." He shook his head and took another swig of his beer while he thought about Mr. Dover and everything that appeared to be wrong with him. There was something suspicious about the man, but David had written it off as being the fact that he was grief stricken more than anything else.
David sucked a sharp intake of air through his teeth, eyes blinking hard and rapidly after the fact. "There's something off about that statement even. The idea that this kid, that has a damned driver's license, is that developmentally challenged." He let out a breath, "I think there's someone else who he's helping, but I haven't turned up shit yet." He'd knocked on the door of every registered sex offender in their database near where the Dover's lived. Nothing had turned up yet. "So, what do you dream about, Leon?" He asked, turning slightly to look over at him.
Leon frowned, mulling over David’s case. It did sound like it could be a tricky case. Refreshingly normal, by the standards of a lot of dreams he’d hear about, but still damn frustrating. David’s question snapped him out of thinking about David’s dreams, and turned his thoughts to his own, and he let out a wry laugh.
“Shit, I’m not even sure where to start. They’re kind of fucking weird. I’m a homicide detective with the LAPD, and they started when this old one-hit wonder actor turned up dead in his apartment with this weird lizard that no one, and I mean no one, could identify. So I did some digging and it turned out that a lot of people who’d bought pets from this same pet shop turned up dead under suspicious as fuck circumstances.
“I obviously started investigating the owner of this shop and he’s shady as fuck. Like, he sold this couple a man-eating asexual-reproducing rabbit that they swore was their dead daughter that nearly took over all of North America. And he sold this other man this giant shark-eel-thing that he swore was his dead wife returned to him as a mermaid that ended up eating him. And D - the petshop owner - dated this guy for a while who turned out to be a serial cannibal.
“And then my kid brother showed up and I had D watch him for a while, and now Chris lives in the petshop with him. And I think D talks to animals.” And I think I’m starting to do the same. “I’ve been investigating him for nearly two years in the dreams and I still don’t have any damn evidence even though I know he’s behind all this shit. And that barely scratches the surface.”
A look of clear confusion clouded David's features as Leon spoke about what he dreamed of. Weird was an understatement as far as David was concerned, and he was thankful for his relatively normal dreams. Taking in a deep breath, David took another drink and sat the empty beer bottle off to the side. After swallowing he licked his lips, and snorted softly with a shake of his head.
"Weird sounds like a fucking understatement." He chuckled as he cast his gaze over to Leon, "I hope you figure it out man, cause that all sounds shady as hell, and I'm with you; he has to be the cause of it all." At least, that's what it was sounding like to David, but he had to wonder why Leon would allow him to watch over his kid brother if he suspected him of all of that.
David knew that sometimes lines could be blurred, and maybe that's what was going on. "Speaking of Chris, how's he doing?" He thought the change in subject might be better than dwelling on their dreams since David's were about to drive him insane.
“I’m getting used to it, especially with all the weird shit that goes on in this county, but it was a bit of a trip when I first started.” Especially since Leon’s first few dreams had been the darkest of the bunch. Ever since Chris had showed up, things seemed to have settled down a little.
“Chris is actually doing really well. He’s been making friends and he’s doing pretty well in school.” Leon laughed. “Way better than I did, at least. I was too busy thinking about sports at his age to think about math.” And then in high school it had been sports and girls, with school work being a distant third.
He'd been here for several years and it was only recently that he'd really started to notice a lot of the weird shit going on. "Same, some days it's easier than others." David admitted with a small shrug of his shoulders, "But that's just my opinion on it." Sometimes David wondered if he was going crazy, but then he took a look around the Network and he didn't feel so alone.
That had made a difference in his life, the Network that is, and he was glad he'd joined since he wouldn't want to deal with this shit on his own. "Good, I'm glad to hear that he's doing well." He smiled, and looked over at Leon with a laugh. "I still hate math. It was one of my worst subjects in school." He pulled a face and then turned his attention back to the bartender as he appeared to ask David if he wanted another. Shaking his head, David asked for his bill and then turned his attention back to Leon, "Do you know the reason why a lot of us have these dreams?" He'd been dying to ask someone, anyone about it, but it hadn't felt right to ask about it over the network. Leon was a friend, someone that he knew he could trust to give him the answer if he happened to know it.
“There is a reason I became a cop instead of an accountant,” Leon laughed. When the bartender came, Leon made sure to order another drink. He was planning on sticking around until he shut the bar down, but he wouldn’t be That Guy who pressured David into sticking around.
“I wish I knew man,” Leon said, his demeanor almost automatically becoming more annoyed. “I’ve got a theory that anyone who stumbles on the Network will start having these weird-ass dreams, though I got into an argument with some guy,” who claimed to be the Doctor of the Universe, so either he was completely and utterly insane or the dreams had given him some sort of wisdom that hopefully carried through, “who said that only certain types of people find the Network and join up. I’ve been trying to figure out who created the Network, or who’s behind these dreams, but I just keep running into walls.”
David's mouth quirked up into half a smile, "Same here." David had become a cop because he'd been nothing but a troublemaker when he'd been younger. A chance encounter with a good cop had changed his life, and for that, he would be forever grateful.
The smile faded from David's lips, and a line appeared between his brows as his own look became thoughtful. That made sense to him. He'd made an offhanded mention of the dreams at the PD and no one had seemed to know what he was talking about, and thought that he was just eating something weird before he went to bed. David hadn't mentioned it again, but he knew something was off. "I didn't think that there would be any answers, but I was curious." Maybe this whole thing was worth digging at a little bit more. It wasn't that he didn't trust Leon's instincts, or anything, but he wanted to know himself. "It does seem like everyone there is a victim of -- whatever the fuck is going on." He shook his head, letting out a huff of a laugh. "Had I known that when I was first thinking about joining, I probably would've tucked tail and ran."
“Oh, there’s answers,” Leon muttered. “Just because no one knows them yet doesn’t mean they’re not out there.” And some sick freak was probably sitting behind his computer on the Network laughing at them, with all the answers to all the questions Leon didn’t know. “You and me both, man. I just joined up so I could find a babysitter for my kid brother. They really ought to put a big red warning on the front page of the website.”
Shaking his head, David moved to stand. "Who knows? Maybe one day we'll crack the mysterious case of the Network." Not that David was holding his breath, but one could dream. He laid down a couple of bills to pay for his tab, and he chuckled softly. "They should, but they won't. Not with the way this place is." It was crazy, interesting to an extent, but crazy nonetheless. He clapped a hand on Leon's shoulder as he neared him, "Have a good night, Leon. May no dreams plague you tonight." He offered with a smile before removing his hand from Leon's shoulder. "Have another drink for me, I'll catch you later."